Questions tagged [road-vehicles]
Use this tag for question about cars, trucks and other road transport.
190
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Is driving car in first gear bad for gearbox (or maybe for other mechanical parts)? [closed]
It's claimed sometimes that the first gear must be used only to start moving and you should shift into second as soon as possible because driving in first gear is not good for the gearbox/motor/in ...
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Are Maryland's vehicle emissions tests a net benefit for the environment?
I am skeptical that vehicle emissions programs like Maryland's VEIP are a net win overall.
You generate emissions by driving there in the first place, and idling while you wait your turn.
Almost all ...
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Are seat straps in child restraints less effective when they are twisted?
My wife and I have seen many parents in a rush buckle their kids in a car seat despite one of the straps being twisted (I've even done it myself a few times- don't tell my wife- because I had a hard ...
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Is the self-driving car technology of 2017 less lethal than human drivers?
Youtube channel veritasium, on a video called "The real moral dilemma of self-driving cars" (ref) claims that if all cars in 2017 were self-driving, hundreds of lives could be saved.
So he is claming ...
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Is it possible to disable a vehicle with microwave oven magnetron from that distance
In a well-known Youtube channel there is a scene where a scooter had some kind of short circuit caused by magnetron used as a weapon from a distance. I never saw this channel to have fakes but one guy ...
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Can Doom run on a car's infotainment system?
In this youtube video a hacker claims it is easily possible to mod the infotainment system in his Porsche to run the game Doom using the controls of his car to control the game.
This Gizmodo/Sploid ...
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Are Silvester (New Year's Eve) fireworks as pollutive as cars in one year?
In my local newspaper, the Salzburger Nachrichten, there was the following article to be found on 31st of December, 2016:
Guten Rutsch - krach, bumm! Hell wird es wieder sein am Nachthimmel und schön ...
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Does using a neck brace reduce damage taken in a car crash?
In the movie Focus, you can find this scene, where a man puts on a neck brace, before crashing into another car, and this same guy seems to be the only one unscathed. I know movies tend to portray ...
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Do Chevrolet commercials feature "Real people. Not actors."?
Many Chevrolet commercials I have seen in the past few years have started off with the disclaimer: "Real People. Not Actors". They have several of these commercials such as this one and that one.
...
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What is the real history behind of the Ford GAA engine?
I have been searching for quite some time trying to find out if what I have heard is true with the history of how the Ford GAA engine came to be.
(Note: this site has some errors, such as its ...
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Can aspirin revive a flat car battery?
I just read this article on The Reader's Digest which writes to say
If you get behind the wheel only to discover that your car’s battery
has given up the ghost — and there’s no one around to ...
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Did DUI fatalities increase or decrease due to legalization of marijuana?
I've seen conflicting articles claiming that DUI fatalities either increased or decreased after states legalized marijuana. Here are two samples, though there are many articles out there;
"Since ...
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Did unrestricted speed limits lead to fewer deaths in the Northern Territory of Australia?
Drive reports that a section of highway in the Northern Territory has has been switched back and forth between no speed limit, and 130 km/h speed limits over the past decade or so, with some dispute ...
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Does 80-90% of the environmental and health damage a car causes come from manufacturing?
Claim from the video The First 3D-Printed Supercar:
How we make them [cars] is much more important than how we fuel them and whether they have a tailpipe or not. 80 to 90 percent or more of the ...
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Do women pay more than men when buying cars?
In the recent Bud Light commercial, Amy Schumer makes many claims regarding gender equality. One of these claims is that women pay more than men when buying cars.
Here's a link to said video.
Is this ...
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Do trains/boats/planes involved in accidents have a lower occupancy?
This Article from the daily mail makes some interesting (and rather ludicrous) claims, but one stuck out to me specifically.
The article argues that higher cancellation rates/lower occupancy on ...
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Do strobes on top of school buses improve safety?
Background
In many states of the USA, school buses are fitted with a "roof-mounted strobe".
In some states, they are required by law:
Mike Simmons, state director in Arkansas, says that the ...
user29285
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2
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Are recent claims from India of a car fueled by water and calcium carbide legitimate?
Recently, I came across a video and a news report where it has been reported that a man from India has invented a car which uses water as a key fuel component. The car runs on acetylene gas produced ...
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Was there a time when the RSL banned Japanese cars from their carparks?
From Prime Minister - Address at CEDA's 2014 State of the Nation Conference, Parliament House, Canberra
Prime Minister Menzies for instance opened up trade with Japan at a time when Japanese cars ...
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Was a self-driving car pulled over by police for the first time last month (November 2015)?
I read in this Bloomberg article
Google cars have been in 17 minor crashes in 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) of testing.
[...]
Ten days later, a Mountain View motorcycle cop noticed traffic ...
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1
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Does an e-bike produces only 1/10 carbon emissions for each mile of an conventional electric car?
According to Lin, Bo (Deputy General Director at Furi E-Bike1): he says the following in an interview in the program Horizons from WOBI:
Bicycles to lead acid battery generates some pollution. The ...
7
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1
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Can all new gasoline vehicles run on E85 ethanol-based fuel?
From the the documentary Pump at 1:07:
NARRATOR: But what if we don't need a flex fuel car or even a kit?
What if the car you drive today already contained the technology that could enable it to ...
user29977
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1
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Is widespread adoption of the electric car unlikely due to lithium scarcity?
Although lithium is very abundant in sea water, only lithium mineral extraction seems to be economically viable. The world's total reserves in lithium minerals is estimated at 13.5 Mt (not sure ...
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Does leaving the fan on during an RV a/c cycle time save energy? [duplicate]
When running an RV a/c during the summer, is it more energy-efficient to let the fan run while the compressor is cycling? Does it cause more wear and tear? Does it even matter if you allow the fan to ...
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How effective are reflectors at preventing pedestrian deaths?
http://www.safetyreflectors.com/education.html has some claims about reflectors:
Studies have proven that the risk of being hit by a motorist in the dark is eight times lower when wearing a safety ...
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Does an old car with engine turned off pollute more than a new car going 60 mph? [closed]
On the show Real Time with Bill Maher (Jan 9, 2015), Jay Leno (a guy that seems knowledgeable about cars) made this very interesting statement 37 minutes in:
A 1977 Ford Galaxy, one of those big ...
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Is driving stoned safer than driving drunk?
Some support that driving while under the influence of marijuana is safer than driving when drunk, saying that people who drive high always drive at slower speeds so even if they cause an accident, it'...
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Do I need to wait for my car to warm up before driving off? [duplicate]
I heard many times from friends that after starting up the engine of a car you have to wait a few minutes for it to warm up before driving off.
I also heard that this only applies to engines that ...
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Do electric cars create more fine dust pollution than comparable petrol cars?
According to this Flanders Today (a local Belgian newspaper) article (dead link, archive on archive.org).
a new small car on petrol in the city creates less fine dust than an electric car of average ...
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How many pedestrians die a year in NYC from being hit by a car?
In researching my other question, I found a hard time getting all the sources of numbers of deaths to agree with each other. Some of the numbers I found are as follows:
168 pedestrians and 10 ...
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Would lowering the speed limit in NYC by 5mph lower the number of pedestrian deaths by a factor of 2?
According to the Mayor of New York City, De Blasio: (my emphasis)
Excessive speed contributes to 25 percent of roadway fatalities on New York City Streets and is the leading cause of motor vehicle ...
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Did Volkswagen, Chrysler and/or GM cut diesel tailpipe emissions by ~99% over a decade?
This article, dated Jan 5, 2014, makes a rather vague claim that
Companies such as Volkswagen AG, Chrysler Group and General Motors have invested billions to make that happen, outfitting vehicles ...
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1
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Do Jet Skis produce in an hour equivalent pollution to 100,000km of a new/small car?
I recall this claim being published in a newspaper a while back but time has buried it in the Interwebs, though it does come up from time to time as e.g.
Driving a jet ski for one hour will produce ...
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Is there a viable design for a thorium car that can run for 100 years without being refueled?
This article and included video from Young Turks claims that Laser Power Systems has produced a "concept for a car" which can run for 100 years on 8 grams of thorium without needing t be refueled. ...
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Is using a phone while driving more dangerous than driving while drunk?
There have been numerous studies that show how using a phone while driving is more distracting than other non-driving tasks and even worse than driving while intoxicated.
Here was a study done in the ...
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Is gearing down more energy efficient than braking?
When spotting a red light or similar, I often release the gas pedal, gear down and let the engine decelerate instead of pressing the brake pedal. I was taught that this was more energy efficient for ...
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Are there lots worldwide filled with thousands of unsold new cars left to ruin?
This link came in an email that was getting passed around the office today:
http://www.vincelewis.net/unsoldcars.html
The premise is that car manufacturers, not wanting to dilute their inventory to ...
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Is a car's fuel consumption increased when the headlights are on?
I have read in many sites that a car with lights on will consume more fuel that with lights off. The (hand-waving) justifications that I see tend to mention that "energy has to come from somewhere" ...
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Do car theft victims have to pay around 1,000 USD to have their cars returned in the US?
This Yahoo! news article says:
The 30-year-old’s 2000 Monte Carlo was stolen from in front of his
mother’s house last summer. Finally, several months later, Williams
was told that his car had ...
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Can a car run on water? As per this experiment [duplicate]
The Agha Waqar's car that ran on water was a great news for a long time. Where a Pakistan based inventor invented a car that got all the power from water.
He was using a water kit to get the energy. ...
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1
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Did the US ban the Volkswagen XL1 for being too fuel efficient?
There are dozens of articles similar to this one floating around claiming the new Volkswagen XL1, which can get 300+ MPG (0.78 L/100 km) in ideal driving conditions, has been banned in the USA because ...
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Does lowering speed limits by 10 km/h have any impact on air pollution?
Europe has been under exceptional sunlight for the past ten days, cf. Eumetsat's picture. According to French media, this prevents smog from escaping major hubs. In an attempt to reduce this air ...
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Have more people been killed by automobiles than by all wars combined?
I read this claim somewhere recently, and a google search shows that it's occasionally made around the web, but was perhaps more common in the 1970's (many of the stories I find online are people ...
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Do directional tread patterns on tires reduce hydroplaning?
Treaded car tires are said to be better at avoiding hydroplaning than smooth tires (slicks) in the rain. In particular, directional treads are thought to be the best.
The following is an example of ...
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Did Lyndon Johnson have an amphibious car?
I came across an info graphic that says that former U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson had an amphibious car and would drive guests into the lake while screaming about the brakes. Is this true?
user11643
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1
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Are pets as bad for environment as cars?
In this article referring to a book the authors claim:
Taking the dog for a walk to the store would seem like a more
environmentally-friendly option than piling into the SUV.
Not so, say two ...
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Does a start-stop system for a combustion engine pay off?
A start-stop system stops the engine when the car comes to a halt, for example, in front of a traffic light or during a traffic jam. The engine automatically restarts when pressing the clutch or the ...
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Did the Paul Walker crash happen at ~45 mph speed?
Heavy.com report that the car crash that killed actor Paul Walker was at about 40-45 miles per hour (64-72 km/h). They cite an NBCNews tweet:
Update: Paul Walker was not drag racing at time of ...
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Did Jean-Claude Van Damme do a suspended split between two trucks?
This Volvo Trucks ad shows actor and martial artist, Jean-Claude Van Damme, performing a suspended split between two moving trucks, driving in reverse.
I tend to think that what we see in the video ...
user16186
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Is there a high ecological impact from buying a new car?
First, a disclaimer: this is my first question here, so please point out any deficiency so I can amend it.
Here in Italy, the Government has a recurring policy (it is happening every 2/3 years now) ...
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